low power News - Page 27 of 41 - CNX Software

November 23, 2021November 23, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Entry-level Alder Lake Pentium G7400 and Celeron G6900 processors show up online

Intel recently formally announced the 12th generation Alder Lake hybrid processors family with some high-end processors like the 125W Core i9-12900K processor designed for gaming. But we know some low-power parts are also expected, and @momomo_us recently shared a screenshot showing listings for the boxed version of Intel Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G6900 processor. The screenshot contains limited information revealing the $123 Pentium Gold G7400 comes with a 6 MB cache and clocks at up to 3.70 GHz, while the $91 Celeron G6900 features 4M of cache and a 3.40 GHz maximum CPU clock speed. Both are available in an (FC-)LGA16A package. What we do not know for sure from the screenshot is whether the two processors are indeed part of the Alder Lake family. and media reports like the NotebookCheck.net article that tipped us of the leak suspect they could either be an Alder Lake SoC, or Comet […]

November 22, 2021November 22, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Renesas introduces sub 50 cents FPGA family with free Yosys-based development tools

Renesas has just unveiled the ForgeFPGA family of low-cost low-power FPGA’s to go for under 50 cents in (large) volumes following their acquisition of Dialog Semiconductors last August, who previously designed the GreenPAK programmable mixed-signal matrix. The company says its FPGAs consume half the power of competing FPGAs with a standby current of under 20uA, the price point will enable the use of FPGA in new markets and IoT products, and the tools will be free, at least as in beer, without any license to acquire or install. The full specifications are not available yet, but the ForgeFPGA Family will come with a maximum of 5,000 gates of logic, and the first devices ship with 1K and 2K Look Up Tables (LUTs), and as just mentioned, will operate at ultra-low power as low as 20 microamps in standby. ForgeFPGA is expected to target the same market as GreenPAK notably embedded […]

November 18, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 105 Comments

Save the planet! Program in C, avoid Python, Perl

As a former software engineer who’s mostly worked with C programming, and to a lesser extent assembler, I know in my heart that those are the two most efficient programming languages since they are so close to the hardware. But to remove any doubts, a team of Portuguese university researchers attempted to quantify the energy efficiency of different programming languages (and of their compiler/interpreter) in a paper entitled Energy Efficiency across Programming Languages published in 2017, where they looked at the runtime, memory usage, and energy consumption of twenty-seven well-known programming languages. C is the uncontested winner here being the most efficient, while Python, which I’ll now call the polluters’ programming language :), is right at the bottom of the scale together with Perl. The study goes through the methodology and various benchmarks, but let’s pick the binary-trees results to illustrate the point starting with compiled code. To the surprise […]

October 22, 2021February 25, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

BrainChip AKD1000 SNN AI SoC gets Raspberry Pi and x86 development kits

Brainchip Akida Raspberry Pi & Mini PC devkits

BrainChip has introduced two development kits for its Akida AKD1000 neuromorphic processor based on Raspberry Pi and an Intel (x86) mini PC in order to enable partners, large enterprises, and OEMs to begin testing and validation of the Akida chip. BrainChip Akida neural relies on spiking neural networks (SNN) which enable high-performance, real-time inference at ultra-low power, notably much lower power than traditional AI chips relying on CNN (convolutional neural network) technology. Akida Development Kit based on Raspberry Pi CM4 Specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 or CM4 Lite with SoC: Broadcom BCM2711C0 quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 (ARMv8-A) 64-bit @ 1.5GHz plus Broadcom VideoCore VI GPU RAM – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4 SDRAM Storage – MicroSD card for CM4 Lite, or 2GB to 32GB eMMC for CM4 Networking – Optional 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, Gigabit Ethernet PHY Carrier board – Official Raspberry Pi […]

September 28, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Bangle.js 2 JavaScript smartwatch gets an nRF52840 MCU, a new design (Crowdfunding)

The Bangle.js 2 is an upgraded, improved version of the Bangle.js hackable, JavaScript smartwatch based on NordicSemi nRF52832 SoC that was introduced in 2019 with ESPruino open-source firmware. The new watch comes with a new rectangular design, a Nordic Semi nRF52840 SoC that offers four times the RAM, twice the on-chip and external flash, plus an always-on sunlight-readable screen with full touchscreen support, and improved Bluetooth signal strength. Bangle.js 2 specifications: MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4 MCU @ 64MHz with Bluetooth LE, 256kB RAM, 1MB on-chip flash Storage – 8MB flash Display – 1.3-inch 176×176 always-on 3-bit color LCD display (LPM013M126) with backlight, full touchscreen Connectivity Bluetooth 5.0 LE with advertising, central and peripheral mode support GPS/Glonass receiver Sensors Heart rate monitor 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis magnetometer Air pressure/temperature sensor Misc – Vibration motor Debugging/Programming – Full SWD debug port on the rear of the watch Battery – 200mAh […]

September 20, 2021November 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Arm PSA Certified Level 3 Sub-GHz wireless SoCs support Amazon Sidewalk, mioty, Wireless M-Bus, Z-Wave…

Silicon Labs has announced two new sub-GHz wireless SoCs with EFR32FG23 (FG23) and EFR32ZG23 (ZG23) devices adding to the company’s Gecko Series 2 Cortex-M33 platform. Both FG23 and ZG23 support up to one mile (~1.6 km) wireless range, 10+ year battery life on a coin-cell battery, are certified with Arm PSA Level 3 security, and support “advanced wireless technologies” such as Amazon Sidewalk, mioty, Wireless M-Bus (WM-Bus), Z-Wave, and proprietary IoT networks. Silicon Labs explains the chips’ ultra-low transmit and receive radio power (13.2 mA TX at 10 dBm, 4.2 mA RX at 920 MHz) and RF implementation (+20 dBm output power and -125.3 dBm RX at 868 MHz, 2.4 kbps GFSK), makes the long-range and long battery life possible. The ZG23 is designed for Z-Wave applications with Long Range and Mesh connectivity and can be integrated into either end devices or gateways. The company is also working on ZG23-based […]

September 17, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

cuplTag battery-powered NFC tag logs temperature and humidity (Crowdfunding)

Temperature and humidity sensors would normally connect to a gateway sending data to the cloud, the coin-cell battery-powered cuplTag NFC tag instead sends data to your smartphone after a tap. CulpTag is controlled by an MSP430 16-bit microcontroller from Texas Instruments which reads and stores sensor data regularly into an EEPROM, and the data can then be read over NFC with the tag returning an URL with the data from the sensor and battery, then display everything on the phone’s web browser (no app needed). cuplTag specifications: MCU – Texas Instruments MSP430FR2155 16-bit microcontroller @ 24 MHz Storage – 2K bytes EEPROM part of NT3H2111 for up to 188 temperature & humidity data points or 376 temperature-only data points Connectivity – Passive NFC, tap-to-read via NXP NT3H2111 NFC tag Sensors – HDC2021 temperature and humidity sensors Measurement interval – 3 minutes to 65535 minutes (Default: 10 minutes) Battery – CR1220 battery […]

September 4, 2021May 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

NXP i.MX RT500 Cortex-M33 Crossover MCU integrates DSP, 2D GPU for wearables and IoT devices

NXP i.MX RT500 is the second Cortex-M33 Crossover MCU following the NXP i.MX RT600 Series announced in 2018, and optimized for low-power HMI applications such as wearables and Smart Home & IoT devices. NXP Crossover MCUs are typically clocked at 600 MHz or more, but NXP i.MX RT500 Cortex-M33 is limited to 200 MHz, and combined with 200 MHz Tensilica Fusion F1 DSP as well as a 2D GPU, and power optimizations that enable long battery life of up to 40 days on a charge for wearables like smartwatches. NXP i.MX RT500 key features and specifications: MCU Core – Cortex-M33 @ up to 200 MHz with Arm TrustZone, M33 built-in Memory Protection Unit (MPU), PowerQuad hardware accelerator for DSP functions, CASPER crypto coprocessor for asymmetric cryptographic algorithms DSP Core – Cadence Tensilica Fusion F1 DSP @ up to 200 MHz On-Chip Memory Up to 5 MB of system SRAM accessible […]